Woodchuck Alert!

How much batting will a woodchuck chew, if a woodchuck would chew batting?

All pinned and ready to quilt, my Snow on the River quilt found out the answer to that question this past week.  

Chewed batting

A week ago, my nephew and a friend spent the weekend working on a project in our garage.  Both garage doors (front and back) were open most of the time because it was a very hot weekend.  When we returned the following weekend, we discovered quite a mess in the garage!  Things tipped over and knocked down. A little woodchuck had somehow been trapped in the building all week.  And boy, was it hungry!

My quilting area is upstairs in the garage, and little woodchuck had a good chew on my quilt batting.  Fortunately, it decided that batting doesn't taste too good before it started to chew on the fabric, so not much harm was done.  What a relief!

Our hungry little captive.

We didn't know what kind of animal had been in there.  I left the service door open, and a short while later it peeked it's nose out, then made a bee-line for the nearby flowerbed and started eating.  It didn't even seem to care that people were around.  We finally hurried it along it's way.  I'm so glad it was just a baby, and not the full grown woodchuck we had in the neighborhood a few years ago.  That one would have done a LOT more damage!

Cheddar back finish

What better way to celebrate Independence Day, and the final submission of a huge grant project I've been writing this past month, than to post a quilt finish?

Cheddarback, an antique reproduction sew-along shared by Gay at Sentimental Stitches, is finished!  Gay stayed true to the original, so some of those blocks were pretty nasty to put together.  I suspect that in the original, some of the blocks were a different size and cut down to fit.

Of course, I had to put my own spin on it.  The center top block was an orphan made by my friend's late mother, Shirley Larson, many years ago.  Toward the end of the sew-along I ran into a time crunch, and a few other blocks also came out of my orphan block box.  But, I stayed with the overall theme and I love it!

This is one of those quilts that looks much better in the picture than up close.  The overall pattern emerges.  It's quilted in diagonal rows, and the cheddar backing has adorable sunflowers in the print.

A special trip was made to Hobby Lobby for red binding fabric.  Haven't been in there more that a couple times since the COVID-19 pandemic.  It made me sad, and long for happier days.  We have lost two acquaintances to this illness, and are doing our best to stay safe and healthy.  Please do your best to stay well too.